"The Adventure of English is a British television series (ITV) on the history of the English presented by Melvyn Bragg as well as a companion book, also written by Bragg. The series ran in 2003.

The series and the book are cast as an adventure story, or the biography of English as if it were a living being, covering the history of the language from its modest beginnings around 500 AD as a minor Germanic dialect to its rise as a truly established global language.

In the television series, Bragg explains the origins and spelling of many words based on the times in which they were introduced into the growing language that would eventually become modern English."

[Complete eight part series available on YouTube distributed by Maxwell's collection Pty Limited, Australia]

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New York invasion by 8–bits creatures ! PIXELS is Patrick Jean' latest short film, shot on location in New York. Written, directed by : Patrick Jean Director of Photograhy : Matias Boucard SFX by Patrick Jean and guests Produced by One More Production www.onemoreprod.com

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"Presenter Duranga Manika (Michelle Torres) describes her fascination with white people and their customs and explains how she spent six months living with a 'typical white family' (Tony Barry, Cecily Polson, Kelan Angel, Margeurita Haynes). She also asks members of the general public for their opinions on white people and speaks to the Minister for White Affairs (Bob Maza).

[Geoffrey] Atherden's script takes stereotypes of Australian culture and, with tongue–in–cheek humour, views them as though for the first time, as mysterious, alien and strange. Here, the barbecue is singled out. Elsewhere Manika describes the football match as ritualised violence and betting at the TAB as a religion, while a police commissioner calls the Anzac Day March a ritual where white people 'honour their warrior ancestors' but wonders why it can't be done at home.

Presenter Duranga Manika's ethnographic study of white people simplifies, patronises and mystifies her subjects. Every mundane detail of this one family's everyday life is invested with serious cultural significance. Bob Maza's Minister for White Affairs compresses a history of government treatment of Indigenous Australians into one self–satisfied, authoritative figure. It is interesting that while these characters treat 'white' culture with such fascination, they treat 'black' culture as such a given that the audience does not find out much about it."

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"[Islam, like Christianity] is fuelled by diverse factors. Some point to the growing resentment of being humiliated by the Christian West. The invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq have been the most recent causes for resentment, of Christian forces humiliating Muslims in their own heartland. The support of Israel by the United States to the neglect of the Palestinian people only confirms such resentment in the minds of many. But there are other factors as well. Many young, educated males in Muslim lands cannot find jobs. Since Western technology has failed them, they turn to their faith. The sheer pace of globalisation, and the migration of Muslims out of majority–Muslim countries into a Muslim diaspora have created an alienation that makes people cling more to their faith. Movements of revival have been moving through the Muslim world since the 1930s, but the recent developments of globalisation and migration have brought them to the attention of the rest of the world. As recently as the early 1990s, French scholar Olivier Roy saw worldwide Islam as too decentralised and too disorganised to make much social difference. Today, he speaks more carefully about what he sees happening."